Friday, November 30, 2007

Women who made me rawk

I love to sing, but i aint doing it for commercial benefit.

I have listed 11 videoclips of the female "rock" singers, and each song I almost knew by heart.

Each song has evoked a certain memory, from my primary school all the way to my college and university years. Some are rather sad songs with poignant messages/lyrics/melodies, and some are uplifting. But above all, all the songs here are evergreen to me and maybe to some people too.



Song # 1: What's Up by 4 Non Blondes. I used to love to listen to this song after i did my SPM. It wasnt a song that I can sing with anybody for as long as i can remember but it still made me wanna rock on. The singer's voice is one of a kind and she really sang it with all her might, or like what she would say it:
"scream from the top of my lungs, whats going on?!"

The radios used to play this song quite frequently during 1993-1995.






Song # 2: Kiss the Rain by Billie Myers. I dont know what really happened to this lady but she does have a voicepipe to kill. Deep, husky, melodious yet melancholic. It reminded me so much of my Bradford times in the late 90s. It reminded me of fish and chips during our autumn-winter term. I can close my eyes and see myself walking down Great Horton Road. The wind was so strong, yet we braved through to our class. And once the classes were over, i would go straight to that fish n chips shop next to Barclays and grabbed them fish and chips hot and fresh from the frying place. Have it with ketchup or mix them with salt, peppers and chilly sauce....it didnt matter , i was famished. And I would wash it down with that lovely American Soda.




song # 3: I hate myself for loving you, by Joan Jett. This must have been one of my rock anthems of all time by a female rock star. I think i began to listen to it on my last years of primary school all the way throughout my secondary school and headbanged on it.





song # 4: Ray of Light, by Madonna. Another hit number during my Bradford final years and a great song for clubbing/partying. I dont really care what she's yodelling and screaming about, all i hear is :

And I feel....and i feel...like i've just got home....and i feel.....and i feel....like i've just got home and i feel.....oooohhh.....

This had to be one of the songs that awaken me up and got me going on in the early winter morning or summer morning (and by this i meant at 8.00am broad daylight). I would put it on my PC as loud as possible but not sampai pecah telinga or would wake up my hall mates.




Song # 5: Believe, by Cher. It was the dance anthem and it reminded me so much of graduating my first degree in Bradford. This song was also the song i sang loudly to meself during those days in early 2000 just to vent off my anger towards SH. And I normally continue with the song, Stronger by Cher too. There was one time, I was not sure which channel it was on, but there was this Cher's final concert and man, she is a natural entertainer. I'd love to go to her concert if she'll ever perform again. Sure, she has this kooky, almost out of the world sense of dressing and makeups, and not to mention her numerous plastic surgeries to look youthful but she is one rocking grandma!





Song # 6: Simply the best, by Tina Turner. I never knew that she had had a really rough time with her former husband, Ike Turner until I watched her bibliographic movie: What's Love Gotta Do With It, and she was played by Angela Bassett. I hope she will keep on "rolling down the river" and age gracefully.





Song # 7: Ironic, by Alanis Morissette. I heard it for the first time during my Alevel years and I love it. Full of anger, frustration and the way she screamed just felt like right from her heart, like her very own sad experience.





Song # 8: Bitch, by Meredith Brooks. One hit wonder they call it. But it just reminded me so much of my episodes with this fella who was doing his Islamic studies in the middle east. We never met, only got hooked up on mIRC during my second year undergraduate and we began exchanging photos by mail. The moment he began throwing me with advices on what not to wear and so on, I said bye bye to him and dedicated this song to him too. Sorry mate, I aint your wife material if you are imposing so many bloody laws and regulations on this and that. Take me as I am, this would mean that u gotta be a stronger man. Not that i'd be one stubborn lady when it comes to portraying meself as a muslimah, but I would dress the way I like and I know what to wear for any function. I may have one angelic, cherubic, innocent face, but I am more to that than meets the eye!






Song # 9: Torn, by Natalie Imbruglia. Another big hit in 1998. This Aussie lass made it really big that year but unfortunately her song career spiralled down since then. She then became one of the L'Oreal faces especially on the anti-wrinkle cream commercial. But i love that Dragon sleeveless top that she's wearing in the videoclip. I have wanted to get one,but I dunno why I always ended up cancelling it everytime i see one. What the heck, I myself am a dragon.





Song # 10: Nothing Compares 2U, by Sinead O'Connor. This song was one of the songs of the year 1990. I remembered we kept playing the compilation cassette on the bus on our way to east coast in 1991. That was my 1st school trip ever to Terengganu and Kelantan. Good thing Sinead does have a pretty face doing that close up shots with that almost bald head (commando crew cut).





Song # 11: Listen to your Heart, by Roxette. The introduction to the duo band, Roxette, from Sweden, this song, IMHO. It was like the second best thing since ABBA. I think I heard it first when i was in form 1, and not long after that, they released another smash hit number: It must have been love, that was also the main soundtrack for the highly grossed romantic movie, Pretty Woman in 1990. They continued to grace the global music chart with hit after hit till they disappeared from the big scene in the late 90s.




There you go. I hope you will enjoy my music selection featuring female rock stars (or almost one). There are many more, but I only chose those that had some significance in my life.


9 comments:

ubisetela said...

OMG!!
9 out of your 10 are my favourites!

I just didn't click with Madonna's Ray of Light.. donno why. Bought the album, played it once and tossed it into my design club car boot sale.

I love Billie Myers!! reminds me of my zaman oh-so-naive chenta antara benua... "keep in mind, we're under the same sky, and the nights as empty for me as for you"... kes kes kes...

zewt said...

no wonder this entry jammed up my google reader... too many videos la...

ManaL said...

Ubi ,

I guess we enjoy many similar quality evergreen songs.

Yeah that kiss the rain song memang berhantu la...time tu ade another song: Horny. It was like, either u go kiss the rain or someone's very horny out there!


Zewt,

I know, but all u need is either a more powerful RAM , say 1 GB or use mozilla instead of that unreliable yet fancylooking IE. Then it's gonna be ok. Nowadays i only turn on IE for filling in some certain online forms and those websites that stated its preference.

The Pisces Man said...

Eh, just lurvvveee Must Have Been Love and Torn...

ManaL said...

Pisces dude,

Could it be that those two songs had a certain significance in your life? Or just pure adoration?

Mel Ija said...

I love ALL the songs you picked except for Cher's and Madonna's Ray of Light (which are so-so). Whenever I hear Kiss The Rain, I will always remember Dawson's Creek. I used to be a fanatic follower while I was studying there. Kiss The Rain was played during that Dawson dude and Katie Holmes character looked at each other during a heavy rainpour. Well, something like that

ManaL said...

Ija,

U ditched the surgically enhanced drag queen and another exercise-freak drag queen dincha? ;-D

Dawson Creek eh....i was never really a fan of this drama but i still watch it if it's on the telly. The stories got a bit carried away in the later seasons with all the gays, more college confusing life and so on but i dunno, all i can think of is this love triangle between a pushover loser-cum-dogooder diplomatic blonde dude vs badboy-confused-yet-lovable SOB and a girl who kept on falling for the badboy even after so many wrongs he had done and ran back to the blonde dude for shoulder to cry on.



All i really, really remember about it was the creek and the part when pacy called dawson "oompa loompa".

Yupp, kiss the rain still berhantu gitewww....

The Pisces Man said...

Must Have Been Love coz it was from Pretty Woman... one of my favourite movies of all time..

Torn bcoz the lyrics goes ".... lying naked on the floor..." Natalie naked...? Hmmmm....

Hahahahaha... just kidding, sori for being such a pervert there :-0

ManaL said...

Pisces man,

Dont worry, your pervert secret is safe with me ;-)